Truthfully, Percy had always been sort of intimidated by Kia. Not like in an outstanding way, very subtle, really.

Just seeing this girl, who had just woken up and having seemingly no way of knowing anything, suddenly being so sure of her actions and completely at ease in a world filled with monsters and humans (although the humans weren't too far off the dot) had Percy labelled impressed. The way she calmly handled the incident with the Nemean Lion and stared down at the unmoving carcass had only reinforced this opinion of his. Still, he felt a weird kind of magnetism toward her, like he just had to be near her; one conversation with her proved it was easy, if it could even be called that.

It was less conversation than light banter passed between the two, but no less did it make Percy feel at ease with her. For Percy, she was the type of person you immediately clicked with. Maybe you didn't share the same interests or values or thoughts, but there would never be a boring talk between them. There was no awkwardness or forced association, they just sort of worked.

On the few trains they got on, the two engaged in pleasant conversation. He liked that no matter what they talked about, she would faultlessly flow the topic smoothly. She always seemed to have something to say, even if she did retain her intimidating aura.

He was grateful for that.

The quest members got off the train, which was stupid because all they found were warehouses and abandoned railway tracks. There wasn't much of anything, well, except for snow. There was an abundance of that.

Yipee.

Percy pulled his lion fur coat tighter around himself. Yes, Zoë managed to convince him to take the goddamn fur of the monster he had killed. 'Spoil of war' or whatever she called it.

They wandered through the railway tracks in hopes of finding a passenger train but all they were met with was freight cars all covered in snow like they hadn't seen the sun in ages.

A homeless guy stood by a make-shift trash can fire; Percy figured they must've have looked pretty pathetic considering the toothless grin the man gave them and a gesture to come over. "Ya'll need to get warmed up? Come on over!"

Weirdly enthusiastic, but whatever.

They all huddled around the fire. Thalia's teeth were chattering when she said, "Well this is g-g-g-great."

"My hooves are frozen," Grover complained scornfully.

"Feet," Percy corrected, trying not to make them sound suspicious in front of the homeless dude.

"Maybe we should contact camp," Bianca suggested. "Chiron—"

"No," Zoe said firmly. "They cannot help us anymore. We must finish this quest ourselves."

Percy gazed around the rail yard miserably, thinking about how somewhere, far to the west, Annabeth was in danger. Artemis was in chains. A doomsday monster was on the loose. And they were stuck on the outskirts of D.C., sharing a homeless persons fire.

Percy saw Kia shiver and he felt a little guilty for hogging all the warmth of the lion skin coat. Just as he was about to shrug the thing off and hand it to her, she suddenly stopped shivering, looking oddly comfortable with the freezing temperature.

"You know," the homeless man said, his eyes coincidentally drawing away from Kia, "You're never completely without friends." His face was grimy and his beard tangled, but his expression seemed kindly. "You kids need a train going west?"

"Yes, sir," Percy said. "You know of any?"

He pointed one greasy hand.

Like it appeared out of thin air, there was now a freight train, speckless of snow. It was one of those automobile-transportation carriers, the inside being lined with decks of cars; a label on the side Percy had to decode for a second read: SUN WEST LINE.

"That's... convenient," Thalia said. "Thanks, uh..."

She turned back to the homeless guy, but he was nowhere to be found, nothing other than a cold and empty trash can, as if he'd never been there in the first place.

Since they were a bunch of teenagers with already weird lives, no one questioned it and hopped onto the freight train.

An hour and one pissed off Thalia later, Percy sat in the passenger's seat of a 1999 Mustang Convertible, Kia curled up beside him in the driver's seat. The radio was playing old 80's music that Percy didn't know the name of and neither of them spoke. Percy knew she wasn't asleep, though. Every once in a while, she's blink until her eyes would stay closed for a few seconds too long and she'd shoot them back open, only to repeat the process.

Percy could relate. He didn't want to sleep either, being afraid of what he might dream. He was still worried about Kia, though. Just as he was about to tell her to rest, a voice behind the two said, "Oh, don't be afraid of dreams."

At the same time as Kia, Percy turned around to see the homeless man from before. Neither seemed surprised, almost as if they were expecting a visit from him. His jeans were so worn out they were almost white and his coat was ripped, with stuffing coming out. He looked kind of like a teddy bear that had been run over by a truck.

Leave it to Percy to make the most eloquent observations.

"If it weren't for dreams," he said, "I wouldn't know half the things I know about the future. They're better than Olympus tabloids." He cleared his throat, then held up his hands dramatically:

"Dreams like a podcast,

Downloading truth in my ears.

They tell me cool stuff"

"Apollo?" Percy guessed, because he figured no one could make a haiku that bad.

He put a finger to his lips, his face reflecting a coy expression. "I'm incognito, call me Fred."

Kia finally spoke up, "I would've thought that you would wait to come by until after I was asleep."

She didn't seem very impressed nor surprised to see a god, but then again, he was incognito as a scruffy homeless dude named Fred.

Apollo didn't seem to mind the uninterested tone in her voice, smiling instead. "Did you expect me to miss our meeting the girl I sent to Camp-Half Blood with my sister? Never!"

Right, that was a thing. Percy has forgotten what Chiron told him about how Kia was brought to Camp-Half Blood. Did that make Apollo like her dad or something? Adoptive godly parent, maybe? He didn't ask.

She deadpanned at him, which promptly went ignored in favour of staring at her hands. "You have such nimble and slender fingers! They'd be perfect for music, you know."

"Out of curiosity, is the first thing you notice about someone the state of their hands?" Kia asked.

Apollo didn't say anything, settling for just to smiling at her. Percy couldn't feel any of the regular warmth in it, though. It seemed like more of indication that screamed 'secrets!'

"So, why are you incognito?" Percy prompted, attempting to derive from the current topic, whatever it was.

He shrugged, and for a split-second, the dashing image of Apollo's actual form flashed before his eyes. "Eh, well... Zeus insists on certain rules. Hands off, when there's a human quest. Even when something really major is wrong. But nobody messes with my baby sister. Nobody."

"Can you help us, then?"

"Shhh. I already have. Haven't you been looking outside?"

"The train. How fast are we moving?"

Apollo chuckled. "Fast enough. Unfortunately, we're running out of time. It's almost sunset. But I imagine we'll get you across a good chunk of America, at least."

"But where is Artemis?"

His face darkened. "I know a lot, and I see a lot. But even I don't know that. She's... clouded from me. I don't like it."

"And Annabeth?"

He frowned. "Oh, you mean that girl you lost? Hmm. I don't know."

Percy tried not to feel mad, convincing himself that Apollo was only acting this way because Annabeth's life seemed insignificant to him. Mortals lived such short lives compared to gods, it must've been a sort of coping mechanism, not feeling any empathy towards mortals.

"What about the monster Artemis was seeking?" he asked instead, trying to keep himself off the topic of Annabeth. "Do you know what it is?"

"No," Apollo said. "But there is one who might. If you haven't yet found the monster when you reach San Francisco, seek out Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea. He has a long memory and a sharp eye. He has the gift of knowledge sometimes kept obscure from my Oracle."

"But it's your Oracle," Percy protested. "Can't you tell us what the prophecy means?"

Apollo sighed. "You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem. It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear through the search."

"In other words, you don't know."

Apollo checked his watch. "Ah, look at the time! I have to run. I doubt I can risk helping you again, Percy, but remember what I said! Get some sleep! And when you return, I expect a good haiku about your journey!"

He was about to protest that he'd never written a haiku in his life, but Apollo snapped his fingers and suddenly, he was nodding off.

In his last few moments of consciousness, he thought about how Apollo said he had to go, but weirdly enough, Percy had the suspicion there was much more he'd be speaking to Kia about.